Liam Barr

A good line lands and it feels like you've learned something.
The words fit. You keep them.

They have been passed around for a long time though.
Reworded, renamed, handed on by people who were never trying to be first.
They just wanted something that worked.

Which takes the pressure off.

You don't have to say it better.
You don't really have to say it at all.

The version that's yours is whatever still holds when you're tired.
When you're running late and the answer you wanted never came.
That's the bit nobody can hand you.

The words travel fine on their own.
It's what you do with them that has your name on it.

There's something you could do today that would make someone's life a little easier.
You've already thought of it.

But you're waiting for the version that counts.
The cheque big enough to dent the problem.
The whole year of Saturdays and not just this one.
The cause that's already well run before you arrive.

So nothing happens.
And the waiting feels principled.

The good available today is small enough to fit in an afternoon.
Nobody would hear about it.

You're not waiting to make a difference.
You're waiting to make one worth mentioning.

Do what you can, now.
However small.

Nobody counts silence as something you did.

The meeting ends and you tally what you said. The good line. The bit you should have left out.
The stretches where you just sat with it don't make the list.

But quiet is not the gap between the work.

It takes something to hold.
Your mouth wants to fill it. Your hands want a job.
Staying still while the room waits is effort that leaves no record.

That effort is the whole thing.
The steadiness you keep wanting more of gets built in the minutes you marked as blank.

You have been keeping score wrong.
Half your strength never made the tally.